Amazing what you can do in a high-trust society with long-term planning horizons.

Seems like you could put the same area of solar cells on short poles along suitable bits of RR right-of-way, slanted at the optimal angle for the sun, and get considerably more watts.

At a much lower cost. Those between-the-rails cells have to be far tougher - think about the dynamic mechanical loads they could face in winter, when the RR ran a snowplow down the tracks.